The Tyler Group

Investors increased wagers on a commodity rally by the most in eight months as signs of a U.S. economic recovery bolstered the outlook for demand and drove rallies in crude oil, cotton, copper and gold.Hedge funds and other large speculators raised net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options in the week ended March 12 by 30 percent to 528,680 contracts, the biggest gain since July and up from a four-year low the previous week, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Money managers raised bullish bets on corn by 39 percent, cotton holdings were the highest since 2010, and gold wagers increased 9 percent.

Open interest in commodities rose 2.8 percent in the first half of March, heading for a third monthly gain, and the Standard & Poor's GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials erased its 2013 losses. U.S. retail sales climbed twice as much as forecast in February, the government said March 13. In the four weeks to March 9, the average number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell to the lowest since March 2008. The U.S., the largest economy, is the top consumer of corn and oil and the second-biggest metals user.“People are accepting the fact that we have a growing economy, and there's confirmation of that from the economic data,” said Sal Gilbertie, who helps manage $69 million of assets as president and chief investment officer of Teucrium Trading LLC in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “It gives people a reason to believe that there's going to be sustained economic demand for base commodities.”Commodity ReboundThe S&P GSCI gauge has gained 0.6 percent this year after being down 1 percent on March 4. The MSCI All-Country World Index of equities climbed 5.7 percent, while the dollar advanced 3.6 percent against a basket of six trading partners. Treasuries lost 0.9 percent, a Bank of America Corp. index shows.The euro fell today to its lowest level this year, sending 17 of the raw materials tracked by the GSCI lower, after euro- area finance ministers reached an agreement on March 16 forcing depositors in Cypriot banks to share the cost of the latest euro-zone bailout.First-time U.S. jobless claims fell 10,000 to 332,000 in the week ended March 9, the fewest since mid-January, the Labor Department said March 14. Output at factories, mines and utilities climbed 0.7 percent, the most in three months, exceeding the median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists, the Federal Reserve said on March 15.Stimulus MeasuresEurope's leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in favor of growth at a two-day summit in Brussels last week. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said that he sees an argument for bolstering economic recovery by expanding quantitative easing. King and two colleagues were outvoted last month in a push to expand stimulus. The U.S. will use 8.7 percent of the world's copper this year, and western Europe will account for 14 percent of demand, according to Morgan Stanley.The S&P GSCI is up 86 percent since the end of 2008 as the Fed expanded its balance sheet to more than $3 trillion, joining central banks from Europe to Asia in global stimulus aimed at boosting growth. U.S. policy makers probably will decide to continue their $85 billion monthly asset-purchase program at a meeting March 19-20, Credit Suisse Group AG economists Neal Soss and Dana Saporta said in a note last week.Bullish commodity holdings fell 24 percent since Jan. 1, as equity markets outpaced gains for raw materials. Demand from China, the biggest consumer of everything from copper to soybeans, may decline as industrial output had the weakest start to a year since 2009 and its copper imports tumbled to a 20- month low in February. The country accounts for 42 percent of global demand for the metal, Barclays Plc estimates.Supplies GainingCopper stockpiles monitored by exchanges in London, New York and Shanghai jumped 43 percent since the start of the year to the highest since December 2003, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting record corn and soybean crops, and U.S. crude-oil stockpiles have climbed for eight weeks. Copper net-short positions, or bets prices will decline, totaled 16,764 contracts on March 12, 2.3 percent more than a week earlier, CFTC data show.“The question is: has China peaked?” said Tom Stringfellow, the president of San Antonio-based Frost Investment Advisors LLC, which manages about $9 billion of assets. “If you think there is an economic slowdown coming, that could very well mean another global recession, and you wouldn't be interested in commodities in general.”Investors withdrew a net $110 million from commodity funds in the week ended March 13, including $194 million from gold and precious-metals funds, said Cameron Brandt, the director of research for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based researcher EPFR Global, which tracks money flows.Declines OverdoneThis year's price declines are exaggerated, and investors should buy, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a March 7 report, raising its outlook for raw materials to “overweight” from “neutral.” Goldman ranked No. 1 in commodities revenue in 2012, according to analytics company Coalition.Gold holdings rose 9 percent to 43,195 contracts as of March 12, after dropping 27 percent the previous week, according to the CFTC. The price advanced 1 percent for the week, the biggest gain in two months, as investors sought a hedge against accelerating inflation.The U.S. consumer-price index rose 0.7 percent in February, more than forecast, after retail gasoline surged, the government said March 15. Crude-oil futures rallied 1.6 percent last week, the most since Feb. 1, and today touched $93.94 a barrel in New York, the highest in three weeks.Net-longs for agricultural products surged 73 percent in the week ended March 12 to 243,238 contracts, the first increase in five weeks, according to the CFTC.Cotton SurgeCotton holdings rose 12 percent to 67,632 contracts, the highest since September 2010. Prices climbed to an 11-month high of 93.93 cents a pound on March 15 in New York on speculation that China, the largest buyer, will boost imports just as supply tightens in the U.S., the biggest exporter.Bets on higher corn prices rose to 87,671 contracts in the biggest weekly gain since July, according to the CFTC. Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade today rose to the highest since Feb. 7. Soybean net-long holdings advanced 8.6 percent to 139,344 contracts, the highest since November.Speculators also trimmed bearish holdings in sugar by 75 percent, leaving a net-short position of 11,540 contracts, according to the commission, while the price rose 0.7 percent for the week. Wheat net-shorts narrowed by 10 percent to 41,519 contracts, before prices advanced 3.7 percent.Value-OrientedInvestors may be purchasing commodities after prices declined earlier this year, said Adrian Day, who manages about $170 million of assets as the president of Adrian Day Asset Management in Annapolis, Maryland.“Good economic news, particularly in the U.S., and improved sentiment in Europe has driven” the rebound, said Day. “A lot of money came out of commodities at the beginning of this year and went into equities. There are always some fund managers who are value-oriented, so the decline in commodities has been long enough that it may get more people to move, particularly if there's good economic news.”

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Are you worried in Cleethorpes about the impact the current cold snap is having on your home heating bills? It could be time to get Ready to Switch.North East Lincolnshire Councilhas joined Ready to Switch – a free scheme that could help thousands of people cut their gas and electricity bills.As many people as possible are now needed to sign up at www.nelincs.gov.uk/readytoswitch before Monday 8 April 2013 and use their joint buying power to help drive down their home energy costs.NELC has teamed up with more than 12 other councils across the country to make it easier for people to switch energy providers.

All you need to do is visit www.nelincs.gov.uk/readytoswitch and provide your contact details, the name of your supplier and details of your current energy usage and tariff.If you don't have access to the internet, you could ask a friend or family member to register you (up to five separate addresses can be registered with the same email).Staff at your local library, Customer Access Point and Children's Centre can also help if you don't have internet access – but remember to bring a copy of a recent gas and electricity bill with you.In other parts of the country people have saved between £60 and £200 a year on their bills and the more people that sign up, the bigger the potential savings.This is one of the largest schemes of its kind in the UK and by teaming up with other councils, NELC is helping to create a massive pool of potential customers that energy companies bid against to supply.The councils are working with a specialist company called iChoosr who will negotiate with the energy companies on behalf of everyone signed up to the scheme to get the best tariff possible.Over 420,000 participants have already switched suppliers thanks to iChoosr's collective switching schemes in three different countries.Registration for the scheme will stay open until Monday 8 April 2013.Energy suppliers are then invited to bid in a reverse auction to provide power to everyone who has signed up – estimated to be 21,000 people nationwide.The auction will take place on 9 April and the results announced from 15 April. Offers are then sent either as an email or a letter and those who registered will have about three weeks to decide whether or not to accept the deal.You do not have to commit once the offer has been made. More auctions will take place in the coming months so there will be other chances to take part.At the moment the scheme is not open to businesses but it is hoped that similar benefits will be offered to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the near future.Cllr Ros James, portfolio holder for Housing and Wellbeing at North East Lincolnshire Council, said: "The beauty of Ready to Switch is that it uses people power to get you cheaper power. We need as many people as possible to come together and sign up to this scheme, so when you do sign up please also ask your friends and family to do the same. People are already making big savings with this scheme in other areas. There's nothing to lose because if the offer's not right for you, you're not under any obligation to accept it. But if the offer is right, you could make savings of £200 per year."Cllr Peter Wheatley, portfolio holder for Regeneration and Environment, said: "We're making it much easier for people to shop around for their home gas and electricity supply. With Ready to Switch you don't have to trawl the internet looking for offers, just fill in a quick online form from the link at www.nelincs.gov.uk/readytoswitch and wait for the offers to come to you. It's a hassle-free way to get a good deal on your home gas and electricity bills. There's no commitment when you register, if the offer doesn't suit you then you don't have to accept it."

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders from across the District of Columbia municipal government gathered last April for a summit on cybersecurity, where they agreed in writing on the need to improve computer safety training for its workers. Yet nearly a year later, no organized, across-the-board training is offered for employees even though electronic data theft from governments is on the rise.Information technology experts see training as a vital component of cybersecurity and D.C. officials acknowledge their own employees should be better educated on computer use, especially as governments face increasingly sophisticated cyber-threats and as human errors have contributed to widespread data breaches.

But officials say they've put plans for such training on the back-burner while they continue efforts to improve network security, including through new tools and products as well as additional levels of monitoring and inspection. Those improvements are more efficient and longer-lasting than educating thousands of workers who may not be in their jobs permanently, contends Rob Mancini, the District's chief technology officer“You don't start talking about what people should do unless you know you've got protections in place to help,” Mancini said in an interview. “You don't go educating users until you've got something behind it.”The federal government has identified cybersecurity as a critical priority, unveiling new efforts to fight the theft of trade secrets and discourage intellectual property theft. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass legislation to help protect computer networks from attack and warned that American enemies are exploring ways to sabotage the power grid, financial institutions and air traffic control system. Companies including Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Apple have been recently hacked, as have financial services companies that maintain credit card account information.State governments, repositories of personnel information, financial data, emergency operations plans, health care records and other documents, are particularly vulnerable targets. A 2012 study by the Deloitte consulting firm and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers found that less than a quarter of the state information security chiefs felt confident in their state's ability to protect data from an outside threat.D.C. officials, recognizing the problem, organized an exercise last April to gauge the government's cyber-attack readiness.A section of the after-action report, obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request and marked “exercise sensitive,” identified as a primary area for improvement “cyber-security training for District employees at the awareness, performance, and management levels” and said participants had agreed on the need to raise employee workforce education efforts. But in responding to follow-up requests for written cybersecurity training materials that are provided to employees, neither the office of chief technology officer nor the homeland security agency said they had documents to produce.D.C. Homeland Security Director Chris Geldart said D.C. was studying other jurisdictions' best practices, acknowledging, “We need to improve on this.”Paul Quander, the deputy mayor for public safety, said he believes some employees have received some type of training and that notices and alerts about cybersecurity are distributed on occasion within the government. But he said he's not convinced training is the most efficient safeguard, in part because of employee turnover, and that he'd prefer a system-wide approach that lessens the chance of an employee error opening the door to a cyber-attack. He declined to elaborate on the record.Though there's no guarantee a tech-savvy workforce can thwart an Internet attack, experts say cybersecurity education is increasingly important as adept hackers, capable of preying on a computer user's mistake, judgment lapse or open social media account, develop more tools to penetrate government websites.When it comes to cybersecurity, “the weakest link can impact an entire network,” said Eric Chapman, deputy director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center at the University of Maryland.“If you have one user who's fundamentally unaware of what a spear-phishing email looks like, the entire enterprise is vulnerable,” he added, referring to a ploy in which computer uses receive legitimate-looking emails that offer plausible explanations for requesting personal data, along with a link. Hackers can gain access to sensitive data once the recipient clicks on the link.Breaches frequently involve a degree of human error.Personal data of 6.4 million South Carolina residents and businesses was stolen from the state's tax collection agency last year, apparently after a hacker sent emails containing malicious software to multiple Department of Revenue employees, including at least one who clicked on a link and unwittingly became compromised. Cybersecurity training was offered to employees after the massive breach. Kentucky officials in December notified roughly 1,100 Medicaid clients of a data breach that began after an employee of a subcontractor fell for a telephone computer scam that enabled a hacker to gain remote access to the worker's laptop.Information technology offices in many states either require cybersecurity training or have erected websites with safety pointers, such as how to create strong passwords, protecting and storing personal information — even links to quizzes on computer safety.New York State employees with access to potentially sensitive information must receive cybersecurity training and refresher courses. Virginia requires agencies to train employees, and access can be terminated for employees who don't comply, said the commonwealth's chief information officer Samuel Nixon, who said there were nearly 118 million attack attempts last year on executive branch computer networks.The D.C. government administers Medicaid and other benefits in a comparable fashion to a state government, making it an obvious target too.“If our system is breached or interrupted, can you imagine the trouble or the chaos and inconvenience, and the fact that people may not be able to receive benefits?” Quander asked.Mancini, in DC, said he hasn't organized training yet because his more immediate goal has been to strengthen the network to withstand threats and survive the mistakes or carelessness of an individual employee. The system's strengths include multiple levels of protection of applications, routine testing for network vulnerability, 24-7 monitoring of the network for possible intrusions and specialized security equipment, he said.He said his office has made more progress in meeting other goals that emerged from the summit, such as integrating cyber-security analysis into citywide threat assessments and better sharing among agencies.The agency does send out occasional security bulletins and spam alerts and may ultimately develop a “library-type website” like the ones seen in other states, he said.“We have been very focused on making security as good as we can make it in order to service the enterprise effectively. The time for awareness and informing folks of the things that we might need them to know is something that would come as a natural extension of our improved preparedness,” Mancini said in an email.

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http://asia-global-energy.blogspot.ch/2013/02/more-on-why-we-need-alternative-to_20.htmlCheck out these pictures of the horribly ugly industrial site built in a beautiful farm field at Mercer County College.I got them from Teresa Lourenco, who lives nearby andabout whom I wrote not long ago.She and her neighbors live next to what was once a beautiful farm field now covered with 45 acres of metal - all in the name of environmentalism.Then read these links to all the disasters connected with wind power. Of particular interest to New Jerseyans is the piece about a windmill in England that collapsed in a mere 50-mph wind. Such winds are common off the Jersey Coast. How would they do in a hurricane? We'll find out if our politicians get their way and waste billions of dollars repeating this fiasco off our cost.

An excerpt:

The £250,000 tower, which stood as tall as a six storey building, was hit by gale force gusts of 50mph.The 50KW structure then collapsed at a farm in Bradworth, Devon, leaving a "mangled wreck".Margaret Coles, Chairwoman of Bradworthy District Council, said hail storms and strong winds have hit the area and the turbine, installed just three years ago, simply could not withstand the wind."The bolts on the base could not withstand the wind and as we are a very windy part of the country they [the energy company] have egg on their face," she said. "There are concerns about safety."

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The European Commission has tabled its controversial financial transaction tax (FTT), despite the fact that only 11 member states out of 27 support it.The tax, proposed by Commissioner Algirdas Semeta in Brussels, has been adopted by 11 eurozone states, including France, Germany and Spain.The FTT aims to raise public funds and encourage more responsible trading by financial institutions.Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pushed ahead with the tax, despite opposition.But there are fears it will catch non-participating countries in its net.The levy, set at 0.1% for shares and bonds and 0.01% for derivatives, will apply to all transactions "with an established link to the FTT-zone", theEuropean Commission said in a statement, and could raise 30-35bn euros (£26-30bn; $40-47bn) a year.Mr Semeta, commissioner responsible for taxation, said: "On the table is an unquestionably fair and technically sound tax, which will strengthen our single market and temper irresponsible trading."The tax will apply if any party to the transaction is based in a participating member state, regardless of where the transaction takes place - the so-called "residence principle" - and it is this provision that is causing the most controversy.Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) told the BBC: "This tax is actually quite draconian and bad for the eurozone. It will drive a coach and horses through the single market and force banks to relocate outside the FTT zone."OppositionThe tax, known as the Tobin tax after the economist who came up with the idea, was proposed by the EC in September 2011.But the 27 member states could not agree, with Britain in particular voicing opposition to the proposal.As a result 11 eurozone countries applied to go it alone under "enhanced co-operation" rules.The Commission agreed and the European Union's Council of Finance Ministers adopted the proposal in January 2013.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21457562